1

Key dates 1945 May July 1946 1947 January March July 1948 1949

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459

POINTS TO CONSIDER

In the immediate post-war years it was by no means clear, either to the Allies or to the Germans, what the future of Germany would be. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the conditions facing the Germans and the Allies in the immediate post-war period and to explore how against a background of increasing international tension Germany became a divided nation. Throughout this study of Germany 194591 it is worth bearing in mind the extent to which the Cold War determined what happened to Germany including the reuniting of East and West Germany in 1990. The major themes covered are: The seeds of Allied disagreements and tensions: the Potsdam Conference The conditions facing post-war Germany Denazication Developments in Germany 19458: the reasons for increasing division The establishment of two German states in 1949 Germany unconditionally surrendered Potsdam Conference Nuremberg Trials Formation of Bizonia Truman Doctrine announced US government announced the Marshall Plan June Currency reform in the Western zones June The Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift started May The Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift ended May Formation of the FRG August Adenauer became rst Chancellor of the FRG October Formation of the GDR

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 7

Key question
What was decided at Potsdam and what issues were left unresolved?

1 | The Seeds of Allied Disagreements and Tensions: The Potsdam Conference

At the end of April 1945 Hitler committed suicide and the following short-lived German government unconditionally surrendered on 8 May. On 5 June, the Allies (Britain, France, the USA and the USSR) took over joint control of all government responsibilities in the defeated Germany. A major conference was then held at Potsdam just outside Berlin in July 1945. In relation to Germany, the conference aimed to deal with four main issues: disarmament, denazication, territorial adjustments and reparations. It is important to remember the German issue was only part of the conference discussions and much of the time was spent discussing the war which the Allies were still ghting in the Far East against Japan. The disagreements between the Allies at Potsdam provide an insight into the different aims and priorities of the occupying powers. The Potsdam Conference contributed to the increasing tension between the Soviet leader Stalin and the Western Allies by bringing out into the open differing views and priorities.

Key dates Key terms

Germany unconditionally surrendered: May 1945 Potsdam Conference: July 1945 Nuremberg Trials: 1946

Denazication The process of ridding Germany of the conditions and individuals that were responsible for Nazism. Reparations Payments by Germany as compensation for the damage caused during the Second World War. NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, set up in 1949, which was made up of countries in Western Europe as well as the USA and Canada as a system of mutual defence. Warsaw Pact Set up in 1955 as a military alliance of Eastern European socialist states by the USSR in response to FRGs membership of NATO.

Demilitarisation
On the issue of demilitarisation the Allies found it easy to agree. Disarmament was a relatively straightforward process because all the Allies agreed that Nazi expansionist policies had been the cause of the Second World War. This meant that the Allies agreed to the dismantling or destruction of any German factories used for building weapons or armaments, as well as the disbanding of Germanys armed forces. It was not until the mid-1950s that both German states were able to develop and then very controversially their own armed forces. However, by then the FRG and the GDR were rmly integrated respectively into the two rival military alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

The Nuremberg Trials

The Allies agreed to put leading Nazis on trial as war criminals. These trials took place in the German city of Nuremberg in 1946, chosen because of its close associations with the Third Reich as the scene of Nazi rallies. Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler had already committed suicide. Altogether 22 leading Nazis were put on trial. Of these, 12 were sentenced to death on 1 October 1946 (Gring mysteriously managed to obtain poison and commit suicide the night before his execution, despite being held in a prison under Allied control and intense supervision), seven were given various prison sentences and three were acquitted. The seven Nazis who were sentenced were sent to Spandau prison, just north-west of Berlin. These included Hess, Hitlers former deputy, sentenced to life imprisonment, and Speer, Hitlers Minister of Armaments and War Production from 1942. The four occupying powers had not previously planned the prison arrangements. They eventually agreed that they would each staff Spandau prison on a monthly rotating basis and this

8 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 arrangement continued for more than two decades. After Speer was released in 1966, Hess remained a solitary gure there until committing suicide in 1987. In September 2007, British government papers revealed that US President Nixon had actually been willing to release Hess in the mid-1970s, but both the British and Soviet governments opposed this as they felt that Hess showed no signs of remorse and, that, if he were released, he might become a focus for a revival of Nazi politics.

Territorial adjustments to Germany

On the issue of territory and the future of Germany, there were clear signs of disagreement. When the Allied leaders gathered at Potsdam in July 1945 the situation was very different from when they had previously met at Yalta in February 1945. When Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had met at Yalta, US forces on Germanys western borders were preparing to enter the Reich and military success seemed assured. There was more co-operation at this stage between the Allies as military strategy outweighed political considerations. In the following two months of ghting, the Battle for Berlin alone had cost the USSR more than 300,000 dead or wounded soldiers. These losses hardened Soviet attitudes with the result that by the time the Allies met again in July 1945 at Potsdam, clear differences of political opinion between them had emerged. Another signicant difference at Potsdam was that, following the death of Roosevelt in April, the USA was represented by its new President, Harry S. Truman, who was a sterner anti-Communist than his predecessor. Furthermore, Churchill was replaced during the actual conference by Clement Attlee, as a result of the Labour Partys victory in the British general election in July.

Key terms

Yalta The wartime conference of February 1945 which decided that the countries in Eastern Europe that had been invaded by Germany should be re-established after the war. Battle for Berlin The name commonly given to the nal few months of the Second World War in Europe which led to Soviet forces nally occupying the city itself.

The Allied leaders at the Potsdam Conference, from right, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, US President Harry S. Truman, and Soviet Union state and party leader Josef Stalin.

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 9

British Zone Soviet Zone French Zone American Zone N

OderNeisse line

British Zone

Berlin (see inset)

Soviet Zone

French Zone

American Zone Berlin SAARLAND

French Zone British Zone American Zone Soviet Zone 0 km N 5

French Zone 0 40 km 80

Allied occupation zones in post-war Germany.

The discussions at the Potsdam Conference over territory most clearly showed the beginnings of tensions between the Allies. It also left certain territorial issues unresolved: Germany was to be divided into four zones: Britain, France (Stalin would only agree to a French zone if it was taken from

10 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 existing Western zones) and the USA were to occupy areas in the west of Germany and the USSR was to occupy the east. A common joke was America got the scenery, France got the wine and Britain got the ruins. The Soviet zone was the largest (40 per cent of 1937 German territory and 30 per cent of its industrial production) and signicantly it included Berlin, 200 km inside the zone. The Allies decided Berlin would remain as Germanys capital, but it would also be divided between the four occupying powers. What was still unclear was if the four zones would ever form a united country again and there was no agreement on Germanys long-term future. At this point it was by no means certain, or intended, that there would be a divided Germany. There was also much friction over Poland. At Yalta, territorial changes and compensation for the USSR had been agreed in principle. But nothing had been nalised. By the time of the Potsdam Conference, Germany east of the OderNeisse had been occupied by Soviet troops. By early 1945: Poland already had a pro-communist government supported by the USSR ve million Germans had been forcibly expelled from former German territory parts of eastern Poland had been incorporated into the USSR. Immediately at the end of the Second World War it was Stalins clear intention to establish a socialist government in Poland. This would secure the USSRs western border with eastern Germany. The Allies intended that another peace conference would be held to determine the nal territorial boundaries. This never took place. It was only with the reunication of the two Germanys in 1990 that Germanys eastern border with Poland was nally ofcially settled.

Key terms

OderNeisse Rivers on the eastern side of Germany. Treaty of Versailles The post First World War settlement that forced Germany to give up territory, pay reparations, reduce its armed forces, and accept responsibility for the war. Treaty of BrestLitovsk The punitive peace treaty imposed by Germany on Russia in 1918.

Reparations
It was also agreed at Potsdam that payment to the Allies for war damage would take the form of the requisitioning of German machinery and industrial equipment rather than nancial penalties. Lessons had been learnt from the Treaty of Versailles about how nancial reparations had contributed to problems in Germany after the First World War. Nevertheless, there was a lack of consistency in the approach to reparations amongst the Allies. Although the Western Allies were keen not to repeat the same mistakes that had been made at Versailles, the USSR had not forgotten how harshly Germany had treated Russia at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918. The approach to reparations was a major obstacle to immediate economic recovery in the Western and Eastern zones and soon became a major source of tension between the Western Allies and the USSR.

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 11

Key question
Why were there disagreements over reparations?

Disagreements over reparations

Friction quickly developed between the occupying powers over Stalins attitude to reparations. Stalin felt justied, following the loss of 25 million Soviet lives and the devastation of so much Soviet territory during the war with Germany, in transferring entire factories, railway stock and even railway track to the USSR. There are some estimates that up to a quarter of all industrial goods were transferred from the Eastern zone back to the USSR. The policy was not only applied to material goods. There were even instances of German scientists and technological experts being forcibly taken to the USSR, sometimes with their entire families. From Stalins perspective, the USSR needed to be secured from attacks from the west. Its territory had been occupied in three major invasions: in the Napoleonic Wars in the early nineteenth century, and in both the First and Second World Wars. For future Soviet security, Stalin was concerned that the USSR should not face a resurgent Germany on one side and a resurgent Japan on the other. It was not until 1948 that the USSR eventually stopped dismantling factories in the Eastern zone. It did so then only because it realised that it was highly likely that the Soviet sector would become one of the USSRs satellite states and thus a rst line of defence against the West. The Soviet stripping of resources from the Eastern zone was to have a longterm effect on living standards and the subsequent development of the East German economy. As well as increasing anti-Russian feeling in the Soviet zone of occupation, this stripping of Germanys resources created more friction with the Western Allies, who were angered even more when the USSR failed to full another agreement from the Potsdam Conference. The Western zones contained the majority of Germanys industry while the Soviet zone was mainly agricultural. Therefore, it was agreed that industrial goods would be transferred to the Soviet zone, which would in turn provide food and raw materials to the Western zones. The failure of the USSR to keep to this agreement contributed to the severe food shortages in the Western zones. Stalins policy strained relations between the Allied powers and led to retaliation. In 1946, the USA stopped sending goods from Western zones into the Soviet zone. The economy of the Soviet zone was also hampered by the absence of the signicant nancial support that the Western zones beneted from when the Marshall Plan (see page ) was later introduced. Stalin has been presented in Cold War historiography as the worst offender in the extraction of reparations from Germany. In fact the French, even though they had the smallest and poorest zone of occupation, extracted proportionately far more than the USSR. The French maintained that because they had not actually been present at the Potsdam meeting they could interpret its policies more loosely.

12 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591

Summary diagram: The seeds of Allied disagreements and tensions the Potsdam Conference
Key issue Demilitarisation to prevent further German militarism Policy at Potsdam To disarm Germany completely Result Germany was disarmed, but in 1955 both parts were in their respective alliances. This rearmament was met with opposition inside both the GDR and the FRG (see Chapter 2) Major Nazi gures were brought to trial at Nuremberg. The USSR and the Western allies had different ideological standpoints. Overall denazication became increasingly difcult to implement (see pages below) The Western zones later joined together (see page ) and the Soviet zone was increasingly organised on MarxistLeninist principles. No further meeting was held. Germany eventually became two separate states (see page ) The issue of reparations became a major source of tension between the Western powers and the USSR

Denazication

To rid society of Nazism by preventing former active Nazis from holding inuential positions in society (see pages )

Territorial adjustments The division of Germany and Berlin into four zones of allied occupation. This was intended to be a temporary measure. The four zones made up an area of approximately 75 per cent of Germanys 1937 borders Reparations The West was concerned that Germany should not be treated too severely. The USSR justied compensation for the damage and costs incurred during Second World War

2 | The Conditions Facing Post-war Germany

The extent of post-war dislocation and suffering
More German civilians died during the period 19457 than during the near six years of ghting in the Second World War. There were millions of refugees, there were serious food shortages, and the winters were severe. Food supplies had collapsed so much that there were even rumours of cannibalism. Ration levels in 1946 and 1947 were lower than they had been during the Second World War. Some German refugees arrived naked and robbed of all their possessions, having been forcibly expelled from former German territories in what had now become parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Many Germans experienced more precarious conditions during the period of immediate post-war occupation than those they had suffered during the Third Reich and the Second World War.

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 13

Key question
Why was there such a severe refugee crisis in post-war Germany?

Refugees and displaced persons

It is notable how transient much of the population in Germany was at this stage. In June 1946, for example, over half a million Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia arrived in the Soviet zone. Refugees accounted for nearly a quarter of the population in the eastern sector. Many refugees had been former prisoners in Nazi concentration, extermination, forced labour or prisoner-ofwar camps. Their hardship was all the more severe because they had no possessions to trade with during this period of an almost total black economy. Money had become an almost worthless form of currency and had been almost entirely replaced with goods such as potatoes or cigarettes. Displaced persons camps existed for many years in post-war Germany. Some of them were on the sites of former Nazi concentration camps, such as Dachau. The last displaced persons camp did not close until 1957. To begin with the Allies tried to repatriate as many displaced persons as possible to their home country. Many did not want to return to those countries in Eastern Europe that were now setting up socialist governments and were becoming part of the USSRs system of satellite states. The USSR, however, demanded that any refugees in the Western sectors who had at some point been Soviet citizens must return. The Western Allies complied with this request. The principle of displaced persons returning to their home country was a clearly a dilemma for the Jewish survivors of the former Nazi camps because many were actually in their home country of Germany. Obviously, many felt very uncomfortable about rebuilding their lives in a country which had tried to exterminate their entire race, and many also felt uneasy about emigrating to Palestine and the politics of Zionism. Over time those displaced persons who could not be repatriated found new homes especially in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel and the USA. By the early 1950s, the FRG had set up a system for West German universities to accept a quota of displaced persons as students.

Key terms

Black economy When common goods such as cigarettes and food replace the use of money as a form of currency. Zionism The movement for establishing an independent state of Israel.

Key question
Why was there resentment of Allied occupation?

Initial post-war Allied occupation of Germany

The initial occupation of Germany by Britain, the USA, the USSR and France led to resentment and tension between the occupying forces and the German population. This was partly due to the fact that many Germans saw themselves as victims of the Second World War, rather than as perpetrators. It is estimated that between 1945 and 1947 in the Soviet sector up to two million German women were raped by Soviet soldiers and that approximately 90 per cent of pregnancies in that sector were aborted. This gure does not include the very high number of privately arranged terminations. German men who tried to protect the women were sometimes shot. The high levels of rape continued until better controls were enforced by the USSR on its soldiers in 1947 and harsh penalties were introduced in 1949.

14 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 Looting was also very common by the Soviet soldiers in their zone of occupation. In the Western zones, there was some resentment among German civilians at the lifestyle enjoyed by the occupying forces, especially when Allied soldiers in the Western zones were later joined by their families, and local people were sometimes evicted to provide accommodation. A social club was built for the Western Allies in Berlin, the cost of which could have provided homes for 6000 Germans. The Allied forces and families began to enjoy food levels and accommodation that were in some cases actually better than they would have enjoyed at home. There were reports that these disparities were at their most extreme in the French zone. Segregation policies were also resented, whereby for example, hairdressers had cubicles for Allies and their families and separate ones for Germans, although some Germans acknowledged that this was not so very different to some of the early measures that the Nazis had taken against the Jews. Tensions also rose as war-weary German soldiers and prisoners of war returned home, to discover their wives or partners mixing with American, British and French soldiers. This is shown dramatically in Fassbenders 1979 feature lm The Marriage of Maria Braun. These liaisons between the Allied forces and local German women ranged from casual to long term, although US regulations meant that soldiers could not marry German women until both had left Germany. These relationships were also partly prompted by the fact that the presence of large numbers of Allied forces offered commercial sexual opportunities for German women who were nancially desperate.

Dealing with shortages

The winter of 19467 was extremely severe throughout Germany. There were reports of Germans freezing to death. Three-quarters of industry had to be temporarily shut down because of power shortages. In Hamburg, Germans attacked coal trains in search of fuel and the entire bread rations for the whole of March were used up within little more than a week. Food shortages were more severe in the Western zones because much of Germanys agriculture was in what was now the Soviet zone. Food rationing was implemented, but the rations were considerably lower than wartime levels. Some of the British Army ofcers administering the occupation of the British zone had to respond to complaints from Britain that they were not being harsh enough on the Germans, especially following the release of lm footage showing conditions in the former Nazi concentration camp at BergenBelsen. The British occupying forces were able to say with truth that the rations were equivalent to those that prisoners had received in the former Nazi concentration camps. Conditions were so harsh that some Germans believed rumours that the Allies were following a deliberate plan to slowly exterminate the German population. Every scrap of land which could be used for growing food was put to use.

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 15

Berliners growing vegetables in front of the destroyed Reichstag building in 1946. One of the problems after planting potatoes was to keep thieves from stealing the seed potatoes out of the ground.

Trmmerfrauen
More than a quarter of Germanys homes and half of its schools had been destroyed during the war. The Allies in all four zones conscripted all German women between the ages of 15 and 50 to clear the huge amounts of rubble. These groups of women were known as the Trmmerfrauen (literally rubble women) and most of the work was done by hand with chains of women collecting, moving and cleaning the debris from the Allied bombardments in preparation for the rebuilding of German towns and cities. In immediate post-war Germany, there were seven million more women than men. Their demanding and vital work has since been recognised throughout Germany with various memorials and exhibitions.

Summary diagram: The conditions facing post-war Germany

Refugees and displaced persons Black economy Food shortages

Conditions facing post-war Germany

Resentment at Allied occupation

Raping and looting by Red Army

Destruction of buildings

16 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591

3 | Denazication
Implementing denazication
The leading members of the former Nazi government had been tried by a tribunal of the four Allied occupying powers at Nuremberg in October 1946. The issue of dealing with other Nazi gures and individuals was clearly going to be much more difcult. Some were in hiding, or had lied to avoid heavy nes or imprisonment. In many instances much of the evidence needed to convict individuals was lost or had deliberately been destroyed. There were also the immense practical difculties of trying to run a devastated country and put Germany on the path to recovery. Individuals with vital skills such as doctors or teachers were desperately needed to aid Germanys recovery. The policy of denazication proved controversial and difcult to implement. Mary Fulbrook argues that the Western Allies in particular were never really clear about whether they were punishing or rehabilitating Germany, and that denazication by the Western Allies was therefore characterised by a degree of confusion and ultimate inefciency. There was also a very different ideological stance between the Western Allies and the USSR. The West saw Nazism as the result of the decisions and choices made by individuals. Because of this, their post-war polices emphasised the need for the re-educating of Germans in democratic values. The Soviets, however, interpreted Nazism as a consequence of capitalist social and economic structures and for them denazication was part of an ideologically driven process towards the creation of a socialist society. Denazication was used as a justication for extensive social and economic restructuring in the Soviet zone (page ). The inconsistent and sometimes indiscriminate approaches to denazication across the four different sectors caused resentment. This was especially during the initial, more punitive, phase when the Allies were keen on making former Wehrmacht soldiers face trial. Many Germans felt that ordinary soldiers had simply been doing their duty and that the Allies did not have a proper understanding of the nature of Nazism. In all four zones, there were cases of former soldiers being arrested, held for more than a year in internment camps, and then suddenly released without any charges having been brought against them. Some managed to escape completely, and some such as Josef Mengele escaped as far away as South America. Others were wrongly arrested, while some managed to secure high-ranking and inuential positions in either East or West Germany.

Key question
Why was denazication such a difcult issue?

Key term Key gure

Wehrmacht The German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.

Josef Mengele 191179 An SS ofcer and doctor who was infamous for his experiments on prisoners at the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz 19435. He was never tried for war crimes and died in Brazil in 1979.

Denazication in the Western zones

The very early stages of denazication proved to be administratively complex and time consuming. The Western Allies required Germans to complete questionnaires, following which individuals were assigned to one of ve categories according to the extent of their involvement in Nazism. Individuals who were classied as not having been active

Key question
How was denazication carried out in the Western zones?

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 17 participants in the Nazi regime collected the so-called Persil certicate, a reference to their being clean (Persil being the brand name of a popular washing powder). It became increasingly difcult, however, to distinguish between those who may have joined the Nazi Party to keep their jobs and careers, and those who had genuinely been opponents to the Nazi regime. The numbers that claimed always to have been anti-Nazi did seem to the Allies to be rather high. The process led to a huge backlog of administration and simply became unworkable. The Western Allies soon became more concerned with rebuilding West Germany rather than putting their energies and resources into denazication. By the early 1950s, the whole process had effectively wound down. This led to much criticism both within Germany and internationally, especially when Adenauers government included several members who had had close associations with the Third Reich government (see pages ). The legal profession in post-war West Germany was later notable for the high proportion of members who had previously been members of the Nazi Party. Further action against former Nazi war criminals became rather erratic. The rst Auschwitz trials were held in Poland 1947 when Hss, the longest-serving commander of the camp, and ve other leading ofcials from Auschwitz-Birkenau were tried and executed. Hss was actually taken back to Auschwitz-Birkenau to be hanged. A second Auschwitz trial took place in Frankfurt, FRG, between 1963 and 1965. At these second trials, over 200 survivors from Auschwitz-Birkenau were called as witnesses. Seventeen of the 22 on trial received various prison sentences ranging from three years to life imprisonment. These numbers were minimal, when it is remembered that up to 6000 SS members were at some stage involved in the operating of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp alone. Since the Second World War, aside from the Nuremberg hearings, there has been the occasional trial of Nazi war criminals and some individuals have been found guilty. However, much of this has been down to the efforts of individuals rather than to the formal actions of the two German states. Simon Wiesenthal, in particular (who was a Jewish survivor from the Mauthausen concentration camp and who died in 2005), worked tirelessly to track down and bring over 16 individuals to trial during the 1960s. His work, for example, led to the tracing and arrest of Adolf Eichmann, who was eventually tried and hanged in Israel in 1962.

Key gure

Adolf Eichmann 190662 Joined the SS in 1932 and was later in charge of deportations to extermination camps in Nazioccupied Poland and Hungary.

Key question
How was denazication carried out in the Soviet zone?

Denazication in the Soviet zone

In dealing with individuals, the USSRs process of denazication was much more thorough but also more ruthless in aiming to exclude or remove former Nazis from key positions of inuence such as in government, the legal profession and education. Less thorough denazication procedures were applied to individuals with medical skills, showing that practical necessities sometimes outweighed political considerations.

18 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 The denazication process was also used in the Soviet zone to attack individuals who were regarded as being opposed to socialism. Within just three months of its ceasing to be a Nazi concentration camp, Sachsenhausen (on the northern outskirts of Berlin), had become Soviet Special Camp Number 7. Those seen by the USSR as politically unreliable were sent there as well as those Soviet soldiers who had contracted sexually transmitted infections in Soviet-occupied Germany. It became Special Camp Number 1 from 1948 to 1950, during which time approximately 25 per cent of the 60,000 prisoners held there died from malnutrition or disease. Later, from 1950 to 1956, the site was used as a Soviet and GDR army barracks, and in 1961 it was ofcially made into a memorial by the GDR government for antifascist freedom ghters. Soviet Camp Number 2 was established on the site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. It held nearly 30,000 inmates many of whom were prisoners sentenced for supposedly opposing Soviet rule in the Eastern zone. Information about the use of these camps by the Soviets for their own political purposes was deliberately censored and did not appear in any history books in the GDR during the period of East Germanys existence. The precise details of these Soviet-run camps were not revealed until 1990. Helmut Kohl visited the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald in June 1991 and was the rst German Chancellor to commemorate the victims of both the Third Reich and the succeeding GDR government.

Key gure

Helmut Kohl Chancellor of the FRG, 198290, and Chancellor of reunited Germany, 19908.

Summary diagram: Denazication

Nuremberg Trials

Western zones

Soviet zone

Nazism seen as a result of individuals

Nazism as a result of social and economic structures

4 | Developments in Germany 19458: The Reasons for Increasing Division

Developments in the Eastern zone
Shortly before end of the war in April 1945, a small group of committed German socialists led by Walter Ulbricht (who always had a Lenin-style beard) arrived in Berlin from exile during the Second World War in the USSR. The previous leader of the German Communist Party, Ernst Thlmann, had been murdered by the Nazis after 12 years imprisonment in the Buchenwald

Key question
Why did the SED gain control in the Soviet zone?

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 19 concentration camp. At this stage there was no realisation that in just over four years the Eastern zone would be a separate socialist German state rmly allied to the USSR, but the Ulbricht Group arrived determined to achieve political power and then to transform German society and economy. They inuenced the measures adopted by Soviet Military Administration, SMAD, which were designed to achieve, if not the co-operation of the German population, at least the consent or lack of outright opposition.

Key terms

Ulbricht Group German communists who had been in exile in the USSR when Hitler was in power. After Germanys surrender, they began developing the Eastern zone along socialist lines under directives from Stalin. SMAD The Soviet Military Administration which controlled the USSRs occupation of the Eastern zone. Stalinist Ruthless singleparty control, as in the USSR. Anti-Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, had taken power in Russia in 1917. AntiBolshevism was a fundamental part of Nazi ideology.

Democratisation in the Soviet zone

The leaders at Potsdam had agreed that democratisation, the rebirth of political life in Germany, would be one way of denazifying the state. Initially it appeared that SMAD was promoting a form of democracy. The Soviet zone was in fact the rst zone which allowed political parties to form. This was a deliberate plan to legitimise the organisation and promotion of the German Communist Party (KPD). Other parties from the Weimar Republic era also resurfaced: the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Liberals (LDP) and a reformed Christian Democrat (CDU) party emerged. Two new political parties were permitted in the Soviet zone to appeal to those unlikely to be reached by the existing political groups: the Democratic Peasants Party (DBD) and the National Democratic Party (NDPD) which was aimed at former Nazis. However, this political activity soon proved to be little more than a sham democracy as the political grip of the Ulbricht group was extended and tightened. Undoubtedly there was genuine zeal amongst German communists. Even though they were under Soviet control, they were committed to their partys socialist cause. Countless German communists had been killed under Nazism and many of those that had survived had spent many years in hiding, in exile, or were survivors from the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. In the immediate post-war period, the KPD consciously adopted a moderate approach. This was partly because they realised that most Germans needed to use any energy they had just simply to survive and that they had little time or inclination for discussions on the social and economic transformation of the state. But the control of political life that developed in the ensuing months as Cold War tensions intensied owed much to the Stalinist model.

The creation of a ruling SED party

Precisely because of its close links with the USSR, the KPD faced a difcult task in gaining support from the population in the Eastern zone, where there was outrage at the extent of the raping and looting that had accompanied the Soviet Armys occupation. Further, the German population had been fed the anti-Bolshevik propaganda of the Third Reich. This meant that the KPD was unable to win much popular support compared to the SPD which remained by far the largest party. There was intense pressure on the SPD during 19456 to join the KPD and to form the SED

20 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 (Socialist United Party of Germany). In the Soviet zone a formal merger between the SPD and the KPD took place on 22 April 1946. The following day, the SED newspaper Neues Deutschland (New Germany) was rst published. This merger is still subject to debate. During the period of the two Germanys, it was portrayed by most Western historians as being brought about by intimidation by the KPD, whereas in the GDR it was described as a merger by free choice. SMAD did not allow a ballot of SPD members to test acceptance of the merger, and similar merger proposals in the West were rejected by the SPDs membership in the Western sectors of Berlin when a ballot was held. However, some SPD members supported the merger as they felt that valuable lessons from the past needed to be learnt and applied. The failure of the SPD and KPD to co-operate during the Weimar period was widely seen as having allowed the Nazis to become the single largest party in the Reichstag in 1932. The merger created a mass party with the political power base which would smooth the implementation of the planned social and economic changes.

Key term

Reichstag The German Parliament building to 1933 and then again following the reunication.

From Hitler Youth to Communist Youth

Young people were strongly urged to become members of the Communist Free German Youth (FDJ). The SED, as the Nazis had done, saw young people as vital to the development of support for the new regime. The FDJ was initially headed by Erich Honecker (see Chapter 4). It was set up in March 1946 for all those aged 14 to 25, although it excluded a small number who had previously been members of the Nazi Party organisations. All other youth organisations apart from church groups were banned to prevent counter-inuences. Alan McDougall analyses the experiences of those involved. On the whole, the process seems to have been quite straightforward. By the mid-1940s, many of those in the FDJ would have previously been the very youngest members of the Hitler Youth. The FDJ deliberately avoided organising events such as torch-lit parades. A major appeal, in contrast to the Hitler Youth, was its mixed-sex organisation. It also offered very real educational and recreational activities for many young people in very disadvantaged circumstances. The FDJ was also able to utilise an engrained sense from the Hitler Youth of hard work and individual self-sacrice in the service of the state. The FDJ was to have problems in later years, when East German society had recovered from the adverse conditions of the immediate post-war period. It then found it difcult to live up to young peoples expectations. Even so, as time progressed and the GDR became rmly established, not joining the FDJ often jeopardised young peoples educational opportunities and careers.

Key question
How did the authorities attempt to inuence public opinion?

Mass organisations
Other mass organisations in addition to the FDJ were also set up in the Soviet zone and controlled to help spread the socialist message. These included the Womens Democratic Association, the Union of those Persecuted by the Nazis, the German Cultural

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 21 League, and the GermanSoviet Friendship Association. By 1947, the vast majority of those living in the Soviet zone were members of at least one organisation under SED control.

Inability to oppose
Many Germans in the Eastern zone soon had the impression that the SED, rather than being a political party, was in fact a tool of the USSR. The ability of the other political parties to constitute any effective opposition was constrained by pressure from SMAD, the dominance of the SED as a political party, its inuence over the mass organisations and the imprisonment of those deemed politically unreliable.

Key question
What were the key policies of the SED in the years immediately after the Second World War?

The SEDs early policies

Sweeping changes to the society and economy of the Eastern zone were implemented during the period of post-war military government 19459. They were driven by socialist principles and by a determination to eradicate Nazism and the factors which had contributed to it. These changes added to the divergence of the Soviet and Western zones of Germany.

Economic changes
Economic reforms on socialist principles involved the state control of former privately owned banks and the nationalisation of much of industry and commerce 60 per cent of it by 1949. The most striking measure was the extensive land reform, requiring large landed estates of former Nazis to be redistributed to the state as well as to agricultural labourers and refugees. This land redistribution (under the motto Junker lands into peasants hands) not only reected socialist principles, it also reduced the power of the group seen to have been inuential in the power of Nazism. Although there was widespread opposition to the disruption caused by redistribution, especially from those who had farmed the land in traditional communities for generations, it was greeted with much enthusiasm by thousands of new smallholders. In social terms the balance of power and inuence in the Eastern zone was certainly altered. Economically the change was literally counterproductive. The 7000 large estates involved had been more efcient than their smaller replacements were to be.

Education
Sweeping changes to education were also implemented with the aims of: removing the aspects which had nurtured Nazism creating a more equal society implanting socialist values. In 1946, the Law for the Democratisation of German Schools was implemented. Comprehensive schools replaced the previous selective system for students aged 614 years. Oberschule provided education for the more able from 14 years of age. The process of

22 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591

Key gures

An advertisement for New teachers for new schools as part of the denazication process in the Soviet zone, 1946. What message does it seek to convey?

Kurt Schumacher 18951952 Leader of the West German SPD, 194652. He had been badly wounded on the Eastern Front during the First World War. SPD member of the Reichstag in 1930. Held in Nazi concentration camps, 193545. Konrad Adenauer 18671967 As Mayor of Cologne (191733) had refused to allow the city to display swastika ags for a visit by Hitler in 1933. He had also spent two brief periods in Nazi concentration camps in 1934 and 1944.

removing all traces of Nazism from schools created severe shortages of teachers and textbooks initially, but a new centralised curriculum was rapidly introduced with textbooks which were now tailored to socialist rather than Nazi ideals. Students from working-class backgrounds gained new opportunities. The proportion going on to a university education almost doubled in three years. They made up over one-third of university students in 1949. The limitation on opportunity came now not from social background, but from pressure to conform. For example, joining a church congregation or refusal to join the FDJ could result in non-admission to university.

Developments in the Western zones

Political parties
In the Western zones, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) under Kurt Schumacher and the German Communist Party (KPD) quickly re-established themselves but they were opposed to any merger. The various Christian and conservative parties (including the old Catholic Centre Party) joined together to form the nondenominational Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Konrad Adenauer (see pages ) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria. This merger of Catholics and Protestants into one political party was a deliberate attempt to work together and prevent the fragmentation of the political

Key question
What political parties emerged in the Western zones?

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 23 parties which had had occurred during the Weimar Republic. The various liberal parties formed the Free Democratic Party (FDP). There were a number of other smaller political parties, such as the League of Expellees and Refugees (BHE). There were no corresponding attempts in the Western zones at radical social and economic change such as had been initiated in the Eastern zone with its land reforms and the mass organisations. The main political divide between the two major parties in the west (the SPD and the CDU/CSU) was their different views on the fate of the Western zones and how far to ally themselves with the Western Allies (see pages ).

Key dates

Truman Doctrine announced: March 1947 US government announced the Marshall Plan: July 1947

The Truman Doctrine

The increasing distrust between East and West over issues in Germany must also be seen against the wider international background of growing suspicion and tensions between the Western Allies and the USSR from 1945. This was to lead to what we now refer to as the Cold War. In March 1946, Churchill made his Iron Curtain speech and he urged the development of a Western alliance as a defence against the spread of socialism. At this time there were also fears in the West that the communists might succeed in the Greek Civil War. The USA made clear its views on the threat of the spread of communism. The Truman Doctrine stated that the USA was rmly intent on containing communism throughout the world.

Key terms

Greek Civil War Following German occupation there was a civil war, 19469, between the government and communist forces. COMINFORM The Communist Information Bureau. Set up in 1947 by the USSR to organise communist inltration and intelligence gathering in noncommunist states.

The Marshall Plan

The USA then announced the Marshall Plan in the summer of 1947. It was partly a response to the setting up by Stalin of COMINFORM, which was an organisation to co-ordinate the policies and strategies of the various socialist political parties throughout the Eastern bloc. These socialist parties would then work together in ideological unity to develop economic and social systems based on the Soviet model. The Marshall Plan aimed to prevent the spread of communism by reviving the European economy. It also aimed to expand the market for US goods. In the case of Germany it also represented a signicant change in US policy from punishing to rebuilding Germany. It reected a recognition that a strong Germany with a rebuilt economy could act as a defence against communist expansion. The plan was famously denounced by V. Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, as dollar imperialism. Stalin strictly forbade any Eastern European state to accept Marshall Aid. Within four years, US$13,000 billion were taken up by the majority of Western nations and the Western zone of Germany. Over the next two years much of Western Europe saw unprecedented economic growth and the degree of support for communist parties fell dramatically in the areas receiving Marshall Aid. Aid was administered through the OEEC (the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation). Participation in a common organisation promoted closer working between the administrators of the Western zones of Germany. The OEEC also

24 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 laid the foundations for later Western European integration. Stalin responded to the Marshall Plan with COMECON, although this organisation would prove unable to provide the levels of nancial aid to the Eastern bloc which the USA could offer to Western Europe. Politically, the Marshall Plan had the effect of increasing the division between the Western zones and the East.

Key term

COMECON The economic organisation of the Eastern bloc and the USSR, set up in 1949.

Bizonia
In January 1947 the British and Americans merged their zones to create Bizonia in order to administer aspects of the economy more efciently. It certainly aided German economic recovery, but it was a step which would make the reuniting of Germany much less likely. A London conference in late 1947 ended with hostility between the USSR and the Western powers. The USSR argued that Bizonia was in breach of agreements made at the Potsdam Conference, while Britain and the USA opposed Stalins proposal for a united, neutral Germany. The Western Allies feared that this would become entirely socialist.

Key dates

Formation of Bizonia: January 1947 Currency reform in the Western zones: June 1948 Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift started: June 1948

Currency reform
In June 1948 the Deutschmark (DM) was introduced into the three Western zones, an indication of their even closer co-operation. The previous currency had lost almost all its value partly because of the excessive printing of money by the Soviets. Bartering had replaced the Reichsmark (RM) for most transactions. The currency reform was vital if the German economy was to revive: trade cannot prosper if currency is not trusted. However, this currency reform increased the economic divergence between the Western and Soviet zones. The USSR also introduced a new currency in their zone. In Germany the increasing divide was met with intense Soviet propaganda, claiming that the USA was using thousands of Germans for slave labour, that thousands were leaving the Western zones for the east, and that the Western powers were preparing to abandon West Berlin. It also meant that the Western and Soviet zones were developing into two very different political and economic systems.

Key question
How did the currency reform affect Germany?

The Berlin Blockade and its impact

The Soviets responded to currency reform in the Western zones with the Berlin Blockade from June 1948 to May 1949. This imposed a blockade of all land and water routes between the Western zones and West Berlin. The Berlin Blockade seems not to have been a sudden decision. Since the setting up of Bizonia, the USSR had increasingly obstructed access routes to West Berlin. Barriers would suddenly appear and disappear on roads, canals were sometimes blocked, trains from the west would be diverted, and the Western Allies soldiers were increasingly subjected to identity checks by Soviet soldiers. Access routes to West Berlin had become so restricted by the Soviets that the Western Allies had already begun supplying their troops in West Berlin by air. The full blockade meant that the entire civilian population now had to be supplied by air. For Stalin the aim of the blockade was

Key question
What was the signicance of the Berlin Blockade and the Berlin Airlift?

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 25

Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift ended: May 1949

Tempelhof Airport A commercial airport until October 2008. On its nal day of operation elderly Berliners held placards stating Thank you America.

to force the Western Allies to relinquish their zones in Berlin. West Berlin would then join East Berlin as one integrated city under Soviet control. The Western powers, mainly under the urging of US General Clay, launched the Berlin Airlift, which lasted for 11 months. West Berlins population of two million was supplied with food and fuel entirely by air. Initially this looked a daunting, if not, impossible, task. At its height, an aircraft was landing with food and fuel supplies at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin every 90 seconds. West Berlin had suddenly been transformed from being a symbol of the Nazi dictatorship to a city where Western, democratic values needed to be protected by the Western Allies. The Berlin Airlift, therefore, had a signicant psychological impact. It symbolised the defence of the West against the East and allayed the fears of many West Berliners that they were eventually going to be abandoned by the Western powers. It is ironic that the Soviets clearly intended that their blockade would force the West to surrender West Berlin. Previously, some US politicians had talked of withdrawing from West Berlin. Instead, the Soviet blockade had turned West Berlin into a crusade for the Western Allies. The American public responded by sending nearly ve million packages to Germany, which included food, coffee and clothes. Eventually, after 11 months, the USSR called off the blockade. The Berlin Airlift made the division of Germany and the creation of a united Western zone almost inevitable. Following the Berlin Airlift, the Western powers decided to co-ordinate their armed forces and this laid the early foundations for NATO a development to which Stalin would soon have to respond. The airlift had been carried out with impressive logistical planning

Key term

Key date

Children in West Berlin waving at US aeroplanes making deliveries during the Berlin Blockade, 1948.

26 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 and succeeded when many believed it would fail. Today, there is a memorial at the site for the 48 British and US pilots who died in the airlift. The airlift itself is still often portrayed in Cold War imagery with the Soviet as aggressor and the USA as liberator. In the long term, the evacuation of the entire population of West Berlin might have provided the West with easier-to-defend boundaries, but it was not an option, given the iconic status of Berlin. The Western powers regarded its loss as unthinkable. The Berlin Blockade also helped to increase support in the Western zones for Adenauers policy of their rapid integration with the Western Allies.

The consolidation of Germanys division by 1949

By 1948 both the Soviet and Western zones of Germany were becoming politically, socially and economically more like their respective occupying powers. In the context of the growing international suspicion and distrust, two distinct Germanys were emerging without any direct reference to the German people themselves. Their destiny was being played out against the background of USSoviet rivalry. Indeed, it could be said that it was not until the end of the Cold War that the historical circumstances existed in which Germany could be reunited (see Chapters 4 and 5). By June 1948, within a matter of days of the beginning of the airlift, the USA and Britain had agreed to the setting up of a West German state. The Berlin Airlift was therefore a signicant factor in accelerating the division of Germany. The French added their zone in April 1949 to form Trizonia, while Stalin made repeated requests for all Allied troops to withdraw to allow for a reunited, neutral Germany.

Progress on demilitarisation, denazication, democratisation and decartelisation

The Allies at Potsdam had agreed that four elements would shape their handling of the administration of their zones in the immediate post-war era: demilitarisation, denazication, democratisation and decartelisation the four Ds. Demilitarisation was fully implemented (see page ). Progress in the other three Ds demonstrates the different values and priorities of the Western Allies compared to the USSR. By 1949 in the West, the push to denazify had given way to the higher priority of making use of professional expertise and achieving efciency to ensure economic growth. Decartelisation had resulted in only a limited restructuring of large business and nancial organisations and only a limited application of the principle of co-determination in key industries (page ). However, democratic activity was beginning to resurface. In the Soviet zone so-called democratisation was developing along Stalinist lines with a one-party state which was reminiscent of Nazi government. The other two Ds, which were social and economic in nature, were much more thoroughly and systematically addressed.

Key term

Decartelisation The reduction in the power and inuence of big business interests that had supported the Nazi government.

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 27

Summary diagram: Developments in Germany 19458 the reasons for increasing division
Reasons for increasing division

West Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Currency reform

East

The Ostmark Berlin Blockade

Berlin airlift Formation of FRG Adenauer as Chancellor

Formation of GDR

Key question
What were the key features of the FRGs constitution?

5 | The Establishment of Two German States in 1949

The formation of the FRG
The FRG was set up in May 1949 under the Basic Law which set out a temporary West German constitution. This was seen as a temporary arrangement, which would later be replaced by a constitution that would cover a reunited Germany. The FRGs foreign affairs were dealt with by an Allied High Commission until 1951 when West Germany had its own foreign minister. The Basic Law established a federal state and put in place constitutional controls to prevent some of the conditions which had contributed to the democratic fragility and eventual collapse of the Weimar Republic. Chiey these were: The President could not remove the Chancellor. Political parties were required to secure a minimum of ve per cent of the vote to enter either federal or state parliaments. This was to prevent the entry of extreme political parties into both local and national politics. In the Western zones the rst federal elections took place in August 1949, which the CDU/CSU won with a narrow margin of 139 seats over the SPD with 131 seats. Konrad Adenauer, leader of the CDU, became the rst Chancellor of the FRG and Theodor Heuss (FDP) became the rst President. The stability of the new West German government would depend on the continued support from the liberals, the FDP. There were some concerns and fears, both within the FRG and abroad, that there might be a repeat of the weak coalition governments that had undermined the Weimar Republic. Schumacher, as leader of the SPD, also believed that Adenauer would soon become a puppet of the USA and that public opinion would soon turn against him. The FRG formally came into existence in September 1949 and Bonn was chosen as its provisional capital to demonstrate the temporary nature of Germanys division.

Key dates Key term

Formation of the FRG: May 1949 Adenauer became the rst Chancellor of the FRG: August 1949

Basic Law The constitution of the newly formed FRG.

28 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591 The tasks facing Adenauer were immense. There was a new nation to be built from the trauma and ruins of the Third Reich and the Second World War, a continued refugee crisis, rising prices, and a very uneasy relationship with foreign powers. The existence of another Germany also presented a real dilemma. But Adenauer had campaigned on the premise that economic growth was dependent on the merger of the three Western zones, even if this meant sacricing the fourth zone to the USSR. This was very controversial and Adenauer was seen by some as being prepared to leave the Germans in the east to the fate of the USSR, while prematurely allying the FRG rmly with the West. Schumacher even went so far as to call him a traitor to the German people. The SPD were less keen for Germanys fate to be tied to the USA and even campaigned for Germany to return to its pre-First World War role, when it had been seen as a balance between Western Europe and the former Russian Empire.

The formation of the GDR

The USSR responded in October 1949 by making its zone the GDR. Pieck was appointed President, Grotewohl Prime Minister and Ulbricht became First Secretary of the Politburo. However, as

Key question
Why did so much power lie with the SED?

The Ballast, 1949. This cartoon by Kurt Poltiniak shows Adenauer and Heuss throwing out the common interests of Germany in order to make the balloon rise.

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 29

Formation of the GDR: October 1949

the SED was the dominant party, political power and decisionmaking really lay with the SED First Secretary rather than with the President or Prime Minister. Constitutionally, there was freedom of speech, the right to strike, freedom of assembly and freedom to practise religion. In practice, the situation became very different as freedoms were subordinated to Ulbrichts building of socialism and the development of a socialist state closely allied to the USSR.

Key date

Summary diagram: The establishment of two German states in 1949

FRG

May 1949 Basic Law

Temporary constitution for West Germany

August 1989 elections Narrow CDU lead under Adenauer

GDR

The Soviet zone becomes the GDR, October 1989

Ulbricht First Secretary of the SED

Goal of building of socialism

6 | The Key Debate

Why did Germany become divided in 1949? This immediate post-war period saw a transition from the chaos that defeated Germany found itself in 1945 to the formal establishment of two separate German states in 1949. In the early post-war period, many Germans hoped for a new beginning in German history visions of a Third Way a democratic socialism between Stalinist communism and conservative capitalism. Many hoped for a united, neutral, non-militarised Germany. At this stage, it was by no means clear that either the FRG or the GDR would emerge as separate successful states. Even after the formal division, many Germans hoped that their country would soon be reunited. Why did the Allied occupation end in the formal division of Germany, a development that, initially, had not been intended by either side? Were the seeds of eventual separation already there in the Potsdam Conference in July 1945? Were distinct opportunities missed for Germany to remain as a single nation? What role did Cold War rivalries play? Did they mean that Germanys fortunes became so bound up in the global climate that it left Germany itself with no room to manoeuvre?

30 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591

Debates on the eventual partition of Germany by 1949

At the Potsdam Conference the permanent division of Germany was never intended by the Allies. Opinions vary as to: where responsibility for the division of Germany lie at what point the division of Germany became apparent whether the formal division of Germany into west and east in 1949 remained open for negotiation, at least until Stalins note of 1952 (see Chapter 2, page ). Following the Potsdam Conference tensions and divisions grew between the USSR and the Western Allies. Traditional Cold War accounts in the West portrayed the USSR as pursuing policies to expand socialist control in Eastern Europe. The Western Allies were portrayed as defensive freedom ghters having to respond to Stalin with strong military and economic policies to combat the spread of socialism. However, revisionist historians have painted a more complex picture. It is suggested that the USSR was primarily reacting to the initiatives of the Western Allies; the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan and the currency reform in their zones. Further, the extent to which Stalin actually wanted the GDR as part of Soviet control of Eastern Europe is debated. Soviet leaders themselves had opinions that ranged from regarding the GDR as a vital part of the Eastern bloc, containing valuable raw materials such as uranium, to seeing it as a drain on hard-pressed Soviet economic and military resources. Historians such as Wilfried Loth have argued that Stalin really would have preferred a neutral, reunited Germany, and that the USSR ended up with exactly what he sought to avoid. The decisions of German politicians in both zones also played a part. Inuential gures in the West advocated rapid alliance with the Western powers. Adenauer was impatient for Germanys Western zones to ally with the Western Allies (see pages and the photograph on page ). Opinions on Adenauers intentions differ. It is debated whether he intended to pursue the reuniting of Germany once the FRG was economically and militarily strong enough, or whether he was simply willing to leave the Eastern zone to the USSR. Revisionist accounts also question the extent to which socialism was thrust on to an unwilling German population in the East. Gareth Pritchard argues that the establishment of socialism in GDR was a product of committed German socialists and their desire to create an anti-Nazi state. Mark Allinson argues that while some East Germans tolerated the establishment of socialism in the Soviet zone, others genuinely believed in co-operation with the USSR to create a new socialist society.
Some key books in the debate M. Allinson, Politics and Popular Opinion in East Germany (Manchester, 2000) W. Loth, Stalins Unwanted Children (Palgrave, 1998) G. Pritchard, The Making of the GDR 194553 (Manchester, 2000)

Defeated Germany to Divided Germany 19459 | 31

Study Guide: AS Question

In the style of Edexcel
How far do you agree that the actions of the USSR were primarily responsible for the division of Germany in 1949?

Exam tips
The cross-references are intended to take you straight to the material that will help you to answer the question. This question is asking you to explain and evaluate the causes of Germanys division. The key words to think about when planning your answer to this question are actions of the USSR and primarily responsible. You will need to be clear about the way in which Stalins policies contributed to the division, but the word mainly implies that you will need to show the contribution of other factors, too. You should plan to devote a third to a half of your answer to actions of the USSR, allowing yourself time to deal convincingly with other factors such as the decisions of the Western Allies and the context of the developing Cold War, for example, which also played their part in the division of Germany into two states. There is no need to prove a narrative of events, but you should show how actions by one side provoked reactions by the other. In support of the argument that actions of the USSR were signicant you could show: Stalins determination to create a buffer zone for the future protection of the USSR, and the breakdown of wartime cooperation as a result of Soviet encroachment in Eastern Europe (page ). Stalins introduction of communist-style government in the Soviet zone and in other areas occupied by the Soviet army, which alarmed the USA in particular (page ). Stalins decision to impose the Berlin Blockade which led directly to the heightening of Cold War tensions, the creation of NATO, and the decision to create the FRG (page ). In support of the signicance of other factors you could show that: The events in Germany were inuenced by the wider context of Cold War rivalry. There is much debate about the origins and responsibility for this (page ). The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan themselves a reaction to the threat of communist expansion intensied Cold War divisions (page ). The British and Americans establishment of Bizonia was interpreted by Stalin as an initiative designed to create a separate political body and as an anti-Soviet move (page ). Stalins proposal for a German government was rejected at the London Conference of 1947 because of fears of the spread of communism (page ).

32 | Germany Divided and Reunited 194591

The currency reform created a separate economic entity in the West (page ). Adenauers preference for Western integration was inuential (page ). You should round off your answer by offering your judgement: do you agree with the statement in the question? The Cold War inuence on the division of Germany was so strong that you should take this into account when coming to a judgement.